Saving the Palisades

I applaud the former New Jersey governors Brendan T. Byrne, Thomas H. Kean, James J. Florio and Christine Todd Whitman for their unified efforts against LG Electronics USA’s myopic plan to ruin the Palisades by building its headquarters along the Hudson River north of the George Washington Bridge.

It’s hard to get a consensus today on anything, and especially among politicians. So it’s quite telling that this issue has galvanized these former governors, an obvious sign that LG’s plan will blight the region. But I’d like to go a step further.

The Palisades and the Hudson River were already designed by the ages, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt. Let me offer my own brand of fatalistic optimism. While the building’s design is still up for debate, the surrounding natural area is not.

And despite the company’s unfathomable absence of foresight, one day LG will be gone. Dust. Yet the Palisades will surely endure. Because in the end, nature always wins.